The present invention relates to a compressor which compresses fluids such as refrigerants or air and discharges the compressed fluids.
Conventionally, for example, a refrigerator has employed a system of compressing a refrigerant by using a compressor and circulating the compressed refrigerant in a circuit. As such compressor systems in this case, there are available a rotary compressor called a rotary type compressor (e.g., see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 5-99172 (Patent Document 1) ), a scroll compressor, a screw compressor and the like.
The rotary compressor has advantages that a structure is relatively simple and production costs are low, but there is a problem of increases in vibration and torque fluctuation. In the scroll compressor or the screw compressor, there is a problem of high costs caused by bad workability while torque fluctuation is small.
Thus, as described in PCT No. 2003-532008 (Patent Document 2), there has been developed a system which disposes a swash plate as a rotary compression member in a cylinder and partitions compression spaces constituted below and above the swash plate by a vane to compress fluids. According to the compressor of this system, there is an advantage of constituting a compressor which is relatively simple in structure and small in vibration.
However, in the case of the structure of the Patent Document 2, since a high pressure chamber and a low pressure chamber are adjacent to each other below and above the swash plate in the entire region of the cylinder, a difference between high and low pressures is enlarged, and refrigerant leakage causes a problem of efficiency deterioration.
Moreover, the rotary swash plate of Patent Document 2 described above has a hole for passing a rotary shaft therethrough in its center, and lines connecting points having equal distances from the center of the rotary shaft in upper and lower surfaces are all formed into curves having sine wave shapes. Therefore, there has occurred a problem that workability of the swash plate degrades and costs remarkably soars. In a case where the lines connecting the points having the equal distances from the center of the rotary shaft are all formed into the curves having the sine wave shapes, there has occurred a problem that since an inclination angle of the swash plate is steep, sliding losses of the vane increase.
On the other hand, the vane has a curved surface constituted on a tip portion, and an inclined surface which rises from the curved surface at a predetermined inclination angle. Moreover, a curvature radius of the curved surface of the tip portion is changed in accordance with inclination of the compression member (swash plate). That is, the vane has been formed in accordance with the inclination of the compression member in such a manner that the curvature radius of a vane tip is small on an inner diameter side of the compression member and increases toward an outer diameter side. However, it is difficult to work the vane, and working costs of the vane has been increased.